bubble

Plural: bubbles

Noun

• a hollow globule of gas (e.g., air or carbon dioxide)
• a speculative scheme that depends on unstable factors that the planner cannot control
  • "a real estate bubble"
• an impracticable and illusory idea
  • "he didn't want to burst the newcomer's bubble"
• a dome-shaped covering made of transparent glass or plastic
• A spherically contained volume of air or other gas, especially one made from soapy liquid.
• A small spherical cavity in a solid material.
• Anything resembling a hollow sphere.
• Anything lacking firmness or solidity; a cheat or fraud; an empty project.
• A period of intense speculation in a market, causing prices to rise quickly to irrational levels as the metaphorical bubble expands, and then fall even more quickly as the bubble bursts.
• The emotional or physical atmosphere in which a subject is immersed.
• An officer's station in a prison dormitory, affording views on all sides.
• Someone who has been ‘bubbled’ or fooled; a dupe.
• A small, hollow, floating bead or globe, formerly used for testing the strength of spirits.
• The globule of air in the chamber of a spirit level.
• A laugh.
• A Greek.
• Any of the small magnetized areas that make up bubble memory.
• In a poker tournament, the point before which eliminated players receive no prize money and after which they do; the situation where all remaining players are guaranteed prize money (in this case, the players are said to have made the bubble); the situation where all remaining players will be guaranteed prize money after some small number of players are eliminated (in this case, the players are said to be on the bubble).
• The cutoff point between qualifying, advancing or being invited to a tournament, or having one's competition end.
• A quarantine environment containing multiple people and/or facilities isolated from the rest of society.
• The people who are in this quarantine.
• Ellipsis of travel bubble.
• A bulb or lamp; the part of a lighting assembly that actually produces the light.
• A specialized glass pipe having a sphere-shaped apparatus at one end.

Verb

Verb Forms: bubbled, bubbling, bubbles

• To form bubbles; to make a gurgling sound.
• form, produce, or emit bubbles
• flow in an irregular current with a bubbling noise
• rise in bubbles or as if in bubbles
  • "bubble to the surface"
• cause to form bubbles
  • "bubble gas through a liquid"
• expel gas from the stomach
• To produce bubbles, to rise up in bubbles (such as in foods cooking or liquids boiling).
• To churn or foment, as if wishing to rise to the surface.
• To rise through a medium or system, similar to the way that bubbles rise in liquid.
• To cover or spread with bubbles
• To delude, dupe, or hoodwink; to cheat.
• To cry, weep.
• To pat a baby on the back so as to cause it to belch.
• To cause to feel as if bubbling or churning.
• To express in a bubbly or lively manner.
• To form into a protruding round shape.
• To cover with bubbles.
• To bubble in; to mark a response on a form by filling in a circular area (‘bubble’).
• To apply a filter bubble, as to search results.
• To join together in a support bubble
• To grass (report criminal activity to the authorities).

Examples

• Are you having a bubble?!
• bubble watch
• bubbles in window glass, or in a lens
• dot-com bubble
• Many players tend to play timidly (not play many hands) around the bubble, to keep their chips and last longer in the game.
• Rage bubbled inside him.
• real estate bubble
• The laminate is bubbling.
• The new player’s excitement would bubble over with every successful play in Scrabble.

Synonyms

babble, belch, burble, burp, eruct, guggle, gurgle, house of cards, ripple, ambience, bubble and squeak, bubble bath, bull, circumstances, giraffe

Antonyms

antibubble

Anagrams of bubble